Tuesday, February 23, 2016

So after a lot of work and penny pinching, I am slowly managing to assemble a new demo game for Skulldred Skirmish at The Arcade.

The game itself is also coming along, having been partly reassembled from locked PDFs of earlier versions.

The current version knocks size scores down one dice, so human sized models get 2 dice instead of 3. It also limits gangups to 2 dice, with more possible for swarmers (a special ability). This makes the regular game less about just tight clusters, spreading out the combat to give a more RPGesque feel.

To simplify things further, all attacks that land cause a straight line back recoil (unless you have dodge special ability that gives you a 180 arc), and the most drastic change is models with armor get an 'armor save'- the attacker rerolls the damage dice, and any dive that roll equal or less than the armor score gets discarded. This makes it immediate and allows little guys to get lucky shots in on big guys. If this brings the damage down to zero, the model still has to recoil back or be stunned. This also allows for multiple wound scoring attacks for heavy weapons (the remaining damage is how many wounds you score- capped to 3 for heavy weapons and 4 for magic) and extra damage dice attacks (like explosives).

Magic and power attacks are charged by spending pips on power dice- so magicians charge up for bigs spells or keep a steady stream of little ones if you need to. Things like dragon breath, dragon punches, petrifying gaze and spinning attacks are powered by power dice. Power is not just for wizards now!

So those changes are all working nicely.

After six years of hell, it will be finally good to kiss this project and set it free.

16 comments:

Everyone is going bonkers over Frostgrave, and while I think it's a fine, fun game, I would like to have a modern rule-set that is a little more versatile.

One critique I do have of Frostgrave is that many, if not most, of the scenarios don't necessarily drive the opposing forces against one another. Do you have scenarios in mind that will motivate the forces to interact?

The one thing above all else is Spellcasters take time to charge up big spells and so getting to them early to vex them is a good idea. I also find taking out leaders to be devastating for some warbands.

I recommend placing a plinth or dias near the centre of the table- especially one with sudden death pits around it. I find players rush to claim the 'advantage of height' dice bonus. This feature alone is good for driving rushes, however place a defensable raised area with a magic aura (+1 die to all spells cast) and you have a frenzy race. I want to ship some layouts with the core set, so playtesters will get these

The one that really excites me is that this damage system segways perfectly into Stardred, allowing for behemoth armors, explosions and so forth. It will feel very much like first edition RT, but super streamlined rules. Deodorant bottle vehicles and stat your own zoid coversions included!

Subsequent. I want to keep the essentials the same but make sure one is more focused on gunplay with cover, the other hamd to hand. Plus Stardred will be dripping with eighties Brittish comics feel art- think Starblazers (uk not japanese) , 2000ad, Zzap! and Eagle.